The Sententia: Second Thoughts Part 21

"Yeah?"

"So you did that to Ferny?" We both looked at the plant, who was denuded to an alarming degree and looked rather pathetic in his corner. Despite the damage I continued to inflict on him, he was still hanging on.

"I'm sorry," I said for about the thousandth time of the night, though I meant every one of them.

She nodded. "At least that wasn't my fault. I take care of my boy. But I thought maybe he was just...reflecting my mood." With barely a moment's hesitation, she held out her hand, letting it hang in the s.p.a.ce between us. "Try it on me. Your idea. Instead of killing my plant some more and not really testing it."

"Amy-"

"Just do it, Lane. I trust you."

No matter what she'd said before, she was crazy. I didn't trust myself. Her mind, maybe her life, was at stake. I'd told her about my theory, even about how her relations.h.i.+p, Mandi's meddling and something Caleb had said, was instrumental in my figuring it out, but I wasn't ready to test it. I wasn't sure I- She interrupted my thinking before I could hyperventilate. "Listen. I get the risks, but you need a human subject and I trust you. I know you, too. This is a thing you've never done before. You'll never try it unless I make you. Do it."

She shook her hand at me and I reached forward, grasping her around the wrist, where I could feel her pulse beating behind my fingers. I was shaking, but I held on.

It was the determination in Amy's eyes that did it. Excitement might have been a better word. She wanted to be part of this. I could see it. It was easy to forget that she was a genius, and a huge science nerd, and this was her pa.s.sion. She was about to become a catalyst, Subject 1 in an experiment that had never been attempted before. And because it was Amy, I could not fail.

I licked my lips. "Ask me about a secret you'd like to know. Any secret."

She grinned wickedly before asking exactly what I knew she would and I told her.

A second later, I made her forget.

Chapter Twenty-Three.

Unfortunately, it would take more than one Thought to undo all the damage between Amy and Caleb. I wasn't honestly sure they could. Amy was trying again, coming back to herself more every day. But it wasn't something that could happen overnight, and was made more difficult by the restrictions she was still under.

And also by the continued presence of Mandi Worthington. She had no interest in going away, and poor, beleaguered Caleb didn't necessarily want her to. He was under her spell, but worse, he'd fallen out of Amy's. It was a new game I played, keeping Amy away from Mandi with the threat of the Honor Board's warnings my constant refrain.

Spring break came and went, and Amy and Caleb didn't speak the entire time. My roommate was despondent by the time we returned to campus, sinking back into the bitter abyss she'd only recently started to pull herself out of.

"I'm telling him tomorrow," she announced. She lugged her bag of fresh laundry up the stairs in front of me, with her graduation dress in its garment bag thrown too casually on top of it.

"You can't."

"This isn't even my secret and it's ruining my life! I'm telling him."

We argued our way into our room, where I closed the door behind us and rounded on her. I wanted to tell her that one boy wasn't her whole life, but who was I to talk? Instead, I said, "That's not fair."

"Yeah?" Amy hung her dress in the closet with enough force to remove the wrinkles she'd created on the way from the car. "Well, life's not fair! Heard that one?"

I stared at her. "You're kidding me, right?" My life was, as she knew, approaching its possible end.

"s.h.i.+t." She looked at her feet and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. But I have to tell him. I can't let it end like this."

"It's not over yet."

But one way or another, it was about to be.

"LAINEY, I'M SORRY," Ms. Kim said. "We have to wrap this up. I have a session with Amanda right now."

"Oh, this late, huh?" I closed my notebook and capped my pen. "I think we're all set anyway."

At our dorm meeting, Ms. Kim had told us it was her last year in Marquise and asked if anyone would help her organize an end-of-year-and-goodbye party. I volunteered. Distractions were key to my sanity while I waited for graduation, and Daniel Astor, to arrive.

Amy thought I was crazy, that I should be doing things-whatever they were-to prevent what was going to happen, but I didn't want to explain that I couldn't. I needed to confront him, and I needed it to be a surprise, my surprise. So I told her I was doing things-I was living, for as long as I had left.

As soon as I picked up my bag to pack my things away, a message came in on my phone.

change of plans. caleb txted to meet him @ yost after tutoring. sorry.

Amy was supposed to meet me at the bookstore before dinner. Ms. Kim was still talking while I read her text. "...need so much help if she spent less time flirting in cla.s.s, but I understand it's hard for her."

Wait a minute. "I'm sorry. Did you say Amanda? Amanda Worthington?"

"Yes. I thought she was one of your dorm girls?"

"Yeah, she is," I replied, but it was automatic. I wasn't thinking about what I was saying; I was thinking about how Ms. Kim's room was in Yost. And she was on her way there right now, along with Caleb and Mandi Worthington. And Amy. There was no way that was a coincidence. "You know what? I'll walk with you. If you don't mind."

"Not at all. Did you want to talk to Amanda?"

"Something like that."

Something was up and I knew it couldn't be good. I texted back: not a good idea But Amy didn't reply.

I forced myself to keep the same slow pace as my companion on the way to the cla.s.s building. My legs wanted to run, to arrive before anyone else and stop whatever was about to happen before it had the chance to become a disaster. That's the only thing that could be brewing right now: a disaster. But despite my urgency, I had the feeling I needed to stick by Ms. Kim.

It felt like forever, though, walking the paths from our dorm to the lower school building situated near the back of campus. This was probably why Ms. Kim was moving out of Marquise and into the faculty residences-her campus commute would be cut in half. I tried to listen while she talked but I could barely concentrate.

I didn't know what we were walking into, so I didn't know what to do. Should I stall? Try to hurry? I considered pretending to trip, or telling Ms. Kim I had to use the bathroom and picking up the pace, but I was afraid whatever I chose would be the wrong thing and would ruin my opportunity to prevent or fix whatever was waiting.

All my prevaricating meant we arrived at the perfect moment. By which I meant exactly the moment Mandi was hoping for. We came in by the west end of the building, and as we approached the hallway for Ms. Kim's room, I could hear voices ahead of us.

"Sounds like Miss Worthington's early! What a rare treat."

"Yeah," I replied, but I was trying to listen. The hall lights were off now, this long after cla.s.s hours. It wasn't exactly dark, but gloomy inside, the emptiness of the building making the voices echo and grow.

"...so nervous, Cay."

"You'll be fine. It's just a practice essay." Caleb, no, Cay's-the endearment made me want to be sick-voice was light, comfortable. Mandi was sugar and sweetness. I pictured her touching him, leaning on his arm and looking up at him while they waited outside Ms. Kim's door.

"You could help me, you know."

He laughed. "I'm definitely not the guy to help with English."

"No, but you could just be the guy. For me."

We were almost there, almost rounding the corner into the humanities wing. There was a pause. Caleb paused. He was thinking about it, or what to say, and I nearly ran ahead. Next to me, Ms. Kim frowned. She must have recognized Caleb's voice.

"Mand..." he started. Stopped. There was rustling and I knew they were touching now.

"You could," she said again and it was a tease, an invitation, a bomb about to go off.

We came around the corner at the far end of the hall, but we could see them there, embracing, Caleb's face lowering, slowly toward the upturned, expectant one of Mandi Worthington.

From behind them came a shriek of, "What the h.e.l.l?!"

"Oh, dear," Ms. Kim said and we, finally, hurried forward.

Amy was much closer than we were, at the east end of the hall. She was coming from her service hours, at Admissions, instead of the dorm, so of course she'd have come in on that side of the building.

Caleb and Mandi broke apart, Caleb moving as if waking from a dream to discover he was on fire.

Amy's face was white with rage. "You kissed her!!"

Did he? I couldn't be sure. Whatever had happened, it was far closer than it should have been. Close enough to send Amy stalking forward with steps that tapped out danger.

"I..." Caleb looked as stricken as Mandi looked smug. Triumphant. Like this was the moment she lived for.

"It was hardly the first time," Mandi preened and I couldn't tell you if she was lying or not.

But it didn't matter if it was the truth, because Amy hauled off and slapped her regardless. The sharp crack reverberated down the hall.

Mandi stumbled back while, without a moment's hesitation, I grabbed Ms. Kim's arm and Thought.

This was the moment Mandi had ch.o.r.eographed, had spent months working hard to achieve. She was counting on the perfect witness: faculty advisor for the Honor Board. She was counting on Caleb's weakness and Amy's wrath. She was counting on the perfect timing, close enough to Amy's other problems for it to look really bad and not so close to the end of the year that it could be quietly brushed aside. She was counting on triumph.

Except she didn't count on me.

It was mere seconds, or pieces of seconds, while my Thought did its work. In that blink of time, Amy lunged for Mandi again and I was afraid I'd failed anyway. I still held Ms. Kim's arm as if in shock, but I didn't think I could stop her memory a second time.

But Caleb caught Amy, holding her arms as she struggled and Mandi didn't step nearly as far away as she should have. "Ame, no!"

Finally Ms. Kim shook her head as if to clear it and shouted, "Hey! Everyone separate! NOW!" She might have been tiny, but d.a.m.n if she wasn't commanding.

Amy and Caleb turned toward us with comically matching expressions of surprise; neither of them had any idea we were here. Mandi, on the other hand, turned on the dramatics. Tears s.h.i.+mmered in her eyes because, no matter that she wanted it to happen, it had to have hurt.

"Ms. Kim! Oh, did you see! She hit me!"

Ms. Kim absently touched her forehead. "Calm down, Miss Worthington."

"But...She-she hit me!"

"Miss Worthington, enough!"

Through all this, Amy was still taking deep, audible breaths, but her anger didn't stop her brain from working. She glanced at Mandi, then between Ms. Kim and me, at my fingers slipping from the teacher's arm. Her eyes met mine and I knew she understood.

"How could I have?" Amy countered. "Caleb's holding me." And he was, despite that she'd stopped struggling. Up until Amy said his name, he'd been essentially frozen.

Slowly, he dropped his arms, though his eyes stayed just as wide. "I...I didn't...I'm sorry...Ame-"

In the close contest for who was most confused, Mandi might actually have been winning. She took halting steps towards us, her eyes s.h.i.+ning with those unshed tears and also growing frustration as her plan mysteriously unraveled. "She hit me! Right here!" She touched the spot on her cheek that was admittedly red, but Ms. Kim no longer remembered why. "You saw it!" Her anger was bleeding away her evidence, and red was not a flattering color on her.

"I saw no such thing. Calm down, Miss Worthington."

"Caleb, tell her," Mandi pleaded. She took a step in his direction, momentarily turning her back to us. He wavered, like he might actually go to her, and I couldn't believe she'd risk using her gift on a non-Sententia in front of Ms. Kim.

Amy, who'd gone statue-cool and under control compared to Mandi's simpering-uncrossed her arms, saying, "Nuh-uh, baby." She touched his hand and, once again, the spell was broken.

Caleb shook his head, looking a bit dazed and exactly like he wanted to hide in a hole. Right after someone explained to him what the h.e.l.l was happening. He said the truest thing ever said: "I have no idea what's going on here."

Ms. Kim made a sound like a whale, air escaping through her nose in an exasperated rush. "I empathize, Mr. Sullivan. Maybe Miss Young and I were just too far away to be sure what happened. Did you see Miss Moretti strike Miss Worthington?"

Caleb shook his head and I could see it-he knew. Knew something was happening outside the bounds of what he could understand, and that I had done it. But he knew the right answer too. "She couldn't have, right?" he lied. It was a subtle lie, but he couldn't look at Ms. Kim while he did it, so he looked at me instead.

Mandi, finally, looked at me too. "You b.i.t.c.h! What did you do? You did something! How?! Caleb-" She tugged at his arm but he backed away from all of us. It was as if Amy and Mandi had switched places, Mandi's former smugness sliding comfortably onto Amy's face while Mandi herself went from red to blotchy and shook with fury.

Shouting obscenities at another student wouldn't get you probation, but it would sure get you detention. "I said enough, Miss Worthington," Ms. Kim commanded. "Take your things and leave now while I file your detention slip. I'll see you in cla.s.s tomorrow, and again after last hour to discuss this."

Mandi was crying now. Great, big, angry drops falling with plunks on her cheeks and to the floor. "I'm telling my father about this and Senator Astor!"

"See that you do. Good bye, Miss Worthington."

She ran from us, tears and blond hair flying behind her. At the end of the hall, she turned back just long enough to give me a final glare.

Ms. Kim didn't realize her threat was meant for me. And Mandi didn't realize that, at this point, it was too late. What she told anyone no longer mattered.

Amy and Caleb were alternately staring at each other and glancing in our direction. Ms. Kim rubbed her forehead again and took a deep breath in and out while I held mine. This was a teetering moment, and it could go either way. Amy was standing on a very fine line, and even though I'd managed to erase the worst of what she'd done, she could still be in trouble.

And if it was anyone other than Ms. Kim, she probably would have been. Finally, she said, "And Miss Moretti, I'm going to give you a break. You might not have struck Miss Worthington, but you did try. You'll owe me some service hours, but I won't submit your slip. And I won't be lenient if anything happens again." In softer tones, she added, "I want to see one of my girls at the podium at graduation, and despite a few frustrations lately, I think you deserve to be there."

"Th...thanks," Amy stammered. "Thank you. I'm sorry, Ms. Kim. Really."

"Well, Miss Young, I think that's enough dramatics for me today. I have a splitting headache." She opened the door to her cla.s.sroom but stared down the hall where Mandi had disappeared. "Please make sure we don't end up with another emergency meeting."

"I will."

"Okay, everybody." She waved her hand in dismissal. "Disperse."

We turned to go, murmuring goodbyes and apologies, while Ms. Kim closed the door between us.